Taiwan Defense Minister Wellington Koo Li-hsiung said today that he did not receive information about a possible batch division of the armament package that the United States promised to sell to the island.
© Johannes Neudecker/picture alliance via Getty Images
06/10/2026
by
Lusa
AND. statements released by the Taiwanese news agency CNA, the minister stressed that Washington “represented several times” that its commitment to strengthening Taiwan’s self-defense capacity “has not changed”.
“ Regarding the sale of weapons, we respect the review procedures of the North American side, we will continue to coordinate actions with them and, for the time being, we do not receive any information about the so-called division in lots ", said Koo.
The statements appear almost two weeks after the summit held in Washington between US and China leaders, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, in a context marked by the halting of arms sales by the Republican administration.
Trump, who since his return to the White House has raised doubts about Washington’s historic commitment to defending the island, has, after his visit to Beijing in May, classified arms sales to Taipei as a “great exchange currency” of the US in negotiations with China.
Several analysts have predicted that the US$14 billion arms package (over EUR12 billion) — composed mainly of Patriot interceptors and advanced NASAMS air defense systems, according to Bloomberg — may not be approved by 2027.
This is due to Trump's interest in preserving the good relationship with Xi, taking into account the two scheduled meetings between them before the end of the year, first at the Asia and Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen in November; and then the following month at the G20 summit in Miami, Florida.
China considers Taiwan an “inalienable part” of its territory and does not exclude the use of force to take control of the island, a position rejected by the Taiwanese authorities, which maintain that Taiwan is already ‘indeed’ a sovereign and independent country.
For more than seven decades the United States has held a central position in the dispute between Beijing and Taipei. Washington is the main supplier of arms to the island and, although it does not maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan, it retains a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on possible military intervention in the event of a conflict with China.